


The Lie in Believe

by SweetAsCyanide



Category: Supernatural
Genre: And dark, Cannon Divergent, Eventual Sabriel, Kind of but not really crazy Sam, M/M, Michael is totally the bad guy, Now the Leviathans get that title, POV Sam Winchester, Some mentions of torture, Sort of retelling of season 7, and has a lot of swearing, or was, this is going to be insanely long
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 13:29:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetAsCyanide/pseuds/SweetAsCyanide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As if being trapped in my own head and killing myself twice hadn’t been bad enough, Cas had gone full blown dark side on us. On the bright side, I was back in the real world and I knew who the fuck I was again. On the not so bright side, Cas was all kinds of fucked up and me becoming whole was going to have the nasty little side effect of me hearing voices. As if Lucifer taunting me hadn’t been bad enough the first time.</p>
<p>This fic has been abandoned. Much as I loved the idea of it when I started it's been years. I kept on telling myself one day I would come back and finish it but I'm ready to admit that that won't be happening anytime in the foreseeable future. Thanks to everyone that did read it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Perfect Denial

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. So I've wanted to write this forever, except not exactly like this. The story sort of started to take control of it's self and it turning into this epic heavy and plot-filled thing (it was supposed to be a relatively light Sabriel fic with a sort of bromance/comradeship between Lucifer and Sam). I mean I've already written over 12k of the damn thing and Gabe has yet to make an appearance. What the hell? This is my first foray into writing for the Supernatural fandom so please let me know what you all think (even if you think it's total shit)! The title for the first chapter is from the song A Beautiful Lie by 30 Seconds to Mars. Khel is being my awesome beta for this so a huge thanks to her. This should update every Friday until it's complete. Thanks again, and sorry for the crazy long A.N.

There’s nothing quite like being woken up by a pair of cops with no knowledge of who the hell you are or why your gut instinct is screaming at you to take aforementioned cops down. I know what you’re thinking. Amnesia seriously? He’s starting out talking about amnesia of all things? How much more cliché could he possibly get? But it’s the truth. I couldn’t remember my own name at the time, let alone anything about the world post apocalypse or the fact that I was trapped in my own head. But I’m letting myself get a bit too far ahead, so let’s back track to me getting woken up on a park bench, of all places, by cops, of all people.

I ran. I ran away from those cops as fast as could after knocking them both out. Then there were sirens and more cops and I kept on running, finally hiding behind a wall until they passed me by. That’s when I noticed the door, the one with the words ‘Delivery Entrance Only’ scrawled across it. Of course the place would be a bar, and a closed one at that, as the lady working was quick to inform me. Not like I could leave. Not like I had anywhere to go. I mean, there wasn’t any place labeled with signs that said Amnesiacs R’ Us or anything and the cops were obviously out of the question. Then the nice lady had to pull out a baseball bat. I froze. I didn’t see her as too much of a threat, but she had a baseball bat and I had my fists. Who do you think had the better edge? Either way, I just ended up begging her to let me stay, just for a minute. That’s when she decided to ask the million dollar question.

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t know.” And that was the worst part. I really had no clue who the hell I was. Then she wanted to know how it was that I didn’t know and all I could say was, “I don’t remember anything.” She gave me a drink and we got to talking. I told her how I woke up. How I knocked out those cops by instinct or something.

“Some instinct,” she said.

“Yeah, tell me about it. I mean who even knows how to do something like that?” And when I said it then, I really meant it. I mean, who would do that? I’m no Jason Bourne for fuck’s sake.

“We’ll get you to the ER. The-the quacks will hash it out.” Before the words had even slipped from her lips I knew, just knew, that I couldn’t go to the hospital. I had places to be, things to do, even if I didn’t know what those things were just yet. It was something important. I told the lady as much.

“Like a wedding? A train?” She asked.

“Something like life or death, like-“

“Okay. Hey, hey, hey. Just relax, you know, you-you can’t poop it out, so just…It’ll come to you.” That phrase should come with a damn warning, just like ‘what’s the worst that could happen’. No sooner had she said that, that I saw the book which gave me a flashback of sorts. It was only small snippets, mere fragments of time. Most of them involved a man with a beard and a baseball cap telling me about H.P. Lovecraft and some hotel called the Nite Owl. That flashback might not have been much, but it was something. I borrowed the woman’s computer and, sure enough, I found the hotel only two towns over.

“What, you think you’re staying in this dump?” Surprise was written all across the curl in her lips.

“Maybe.”

“Oh, maybe you’re a hooker.” She commented. I had my doubts on that one, though it would explain my adverse reaction to the police.

“I guess I’ll find out.” So that’s what we did. We left to go find out. She wouldn’t let me go alone; she told me my eggs were scrambled and that she was dying to know how the whole thing turned out. And it lead to me breaking into my own hotel room with a credit card. My own hotel room with a wall covered in a wide array of newspaper articles, maps, and pictures and a table littered with false IDs. My life looked like it really was turning out to be a bad action movie. Cue my discovery of an article on Dr. Eleanor Visyak and yet another trip down memory lane. This time it involved demons and the discovery of how to crack purgatory wide open. Eleanor had been tortured by a demon and an angel, only surviving long enough to tell us that with a little virgin blood and some blood of a native, they were going to crack open purgatory tomorrow. Whenever that tomorrow was. Then, some dude with a gravel voice and a trench coat on a serious power trip calls me same and says he’ll somehow save me from God only knows what. On the bright side, at least I learned my name.

“Sam. My name is Sam.”

“So, uh, what do you remember?”

“Well. It might sound pretty strange if I said it aloud.” Just a little bit weird, what with all the talk about demons and angels and people dying after torture. Oh, and let’s not forget about purgatory being ripped wide open. Yeah, none of that would sound strange in the least.

“Oh, it-it couldn’t get any stranger,” she said, fully believing it. And that, lady, was where you were wrong. 

“Look I-I don’t know. It’s all pretty spotty.” And I really don’t need you thinking I’m any crazier than you already do. “I just remember I was, I was with uh-with two guys. One was a-like a male model type? And the other was an older guy named, uh, Bobby.” Bobby, who happened to have an address written down and, apparently, lived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

“Look, I’m really sorry, but this is where I gotta get off,” she said with a genuinely apologetic look on her face. Who could blame her? Hell, if I wasn’t the crazy action hero amnesiac I would’ve already left my sorry ass. Then I found the car. The Impala. I just knew it on sight, another gut feeling maybe. Just as the woman starts talking about how she’s got a bad feeling about this whole thing, we get shot at. Thank god for those instincts, since the only thing shattered was the car window, and perhaps whatever was left of my sanity, since the shooter just had to look exactly fucking like me. He got away. Darted off in the woods. So, we got in the car and drove. For whatever reason, I knew she’d be safer with me. Then things took a turn for the stranger. First, I started smelling whisky, then came the abrupt change from dead of night to bright ass day time. As if my life wasn’t strange enough already. But in true action movie fashion, let’s cue up the shoot out in the woods with myself. 

“My God. Am I really that gawky? Howdy.” 

“Impossible.” It had to be right? I mean I couldn’t just be having some weird ass face-off against myself in the middle of the woods right?

“Cold. Try again.”

“I’m hallucinating.”

“Warmer. But see, normally, you’re awake when you’re tripping balls.” Seriously? Tripping ball? Who the hell talked like that? Apparently, me, or some fucked up facsimile of me at any rate.

“I’m dreaming?”

“And someone just won a copy of the home game. We’re inside your grapefruit, Sam.” And cue me starting to freak the fuck out. Because all of this shit was in my head. I was fighting down pieces of myself, and this particular piece was me without a soul. That’s when I proceeded to shoot myself. Or rather the soulless piece of me. That’s when I remember. I remember the past year and I remember her. The lady from the bar, she was a ghost from my past. A woman I killed so she couldn’t be used by a demon as leverage, back when I didn’t have a soul. 

“Didn’t I tell you to turn back, that you wouldn’t like what you found?” asks the woman with a cold glint clouding her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Not as sorry as you’re gonna be.” And with those parting words she was gone. She just disappeared into thin air. But considering I was at war with pieces of myself in my own head, her magical disappearing act wasn’t all that impressive. 

I went to Bobby’s after that. Found the place with all the furniture covered in sheets and looking abandoned except for the figure of me sitting at the desk.

“So which one are you?”

“Don’t you know? I’m the one that remembers Hell.” And wasn’t that going to be fun to deal with. But I didn’t have a choice. I had to get out, and get back to the real world. Back to my Bobby and my brother and all of the fucked up glory of the real world rather than the fucked up glory of my own head. In order to get out, I had to become whole.

“Humpty Dumpty has to put himself back together again, before he can wake up. And I’m the last piece.”

“Which means I have to know what you know. What happened in the cage?”

“Trust me, you don’t wanna know it.” And I didn’t. I really, really didn’t. But that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter than this tortured shard of myself was telling me to get the hell out of dodge—perhaps not the best turn of phrase all things considered. It didn’t matter that this part of me didn’t think I was strong enough to handle it, to handle me. I couldn’t leave my brother alone out there. So when he offered me the knife, I took it and I stabbed him. But by becoming whole, I was taking on more than what I had signed up for. I was taking on more than myself. I just didn’t know that part yet.

There’s no rest for the wicked though. And I certainly fit the bill of wicked. 

After getting up, my mind still in a bit of a haze, I wandered my way over to where the action was. Where Cas had become consumed by power and I stabbed him in the back. Literally. I picked up the angel sword from the ground and I stabbed him in the back. Too bad it didn’t do anything. The bastard didn’t even bleed. Ya know what he said then?

“I’m glad you made it, Sam. But the angel blade won’t work, because I’m not an angel anymore. I’m your new God. A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you.” 

As if being trapped in my own head and killing myself twice hadn’t been bad enough, Cas had gone full blown dark side on us. On the bright side, I was back in the real world and I knew who the fuck I was again. On the not so bright side, Cas was all kinds of fucked up and me becoming whole was going to have the nasty little side effect of me hearing voices. As if Lucifer taunting me hadn’t been bad enough the first time.


	2. Every Single One of Us the Devil Inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter two, title from the song Devil Inside by INXS (because c'mon it's fitting). At this point the story is still super cannon based, but it'll begin to drift away from that a bit more in the next few chapters. Anyway let me know what ya think!

I couldn’t tell them. Hell, I didn’t want to tell them. The last thing that they needed was me going off the deep end again. So I couldn’t let them see. I couldn’t let them know. Cas had already gone psycho on our asses; the last thing Dean and Bobby needed was to worry about me being a basket case. It’s not like I haven’t dealt with the crazy before. And who knows? Maybe it’d work out better this time. Either way, at least I wasn’t stuck in the cage. That place made yellow-eyes and the apocalypse combined look like a nice peaceful walk in the park—a park made entirely of Dean’s favorite pies and watched over by sugar plum faeries—and there were only three of us there. Well, four, but Adam didn’t exactly count for much. I don’t think I even counted for much there. It was mostly a lot of Lucifer and Michael having tantrums of epic proportions. It didn’t help that they both had daddy issues a mile wide—though I haven’t got much room to talk there. 

You know what the best part was? Lucifer left me the fuck alone. Okay, so he seemed a bit miffed on the whole my saying yes only to jump in the pit, but oddly enough, he seemed sort of proud, I guess? I know. My mind was a bit melted by that too. Who knew that the fallen one, the fucking devil, would end up being the one I least hated being trapped in the cage with? Hell, the bastard even took a beating or two for me from Michael. That bit may have been accidental or it may have been due to the fact that Luci is one possessive asshole and I was-am-the dude’s vessel. To be honest, I didn’t give a damn what it was, so long as I didn’t have to deal with Michael. The bastard. Fuck, he killed Adam. And it wasn’t just once, because surprise, surprise, shit in the pit doesn’t die; you can’t stay dead. It makes being trapped there just that much more of a party. 

The cage itself was—well beyond description, I suppose? Some days it was all fire and brimstone, others it was ice and fierce mocking winds. It was in a constant state of flux. You might think that might make time there seem to go faster-- to make it all a bit more bearable,--but it made everything worse. You never knew what the damn place was going to do next, how long it would stay as a fucked up dungeon from a hardcore BDSM dream—whips, chains, and iron maidens, oh my!—before it would change into water, endless water, with no way to breathe—of course that wouldn’t stop your lungs for gasping for air and chocking on the sweet tang of blood and H20—but no way to drown and stay dead either. Time dragged on while moving too fast. It was like being stuck in warp speed and slow motion at the same time. At first, I thought it was the doing of Michael and Lucifer, that they had some control over this warped realm, but no. I caught on pretty fast that no one had any real control here. Nothing was permanent. 

But I digress. The point is, I wasn’t going to tell them how fucked over my mind was. I wasn’t going to make them endure the aftermath of the cage with me. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them about Lucifer. Oh, right. I suppose I haven’t mentioned that tid-bit yet. See, it’s not just me in my head anymore. Seems like Lucifer’s taken up residence here as well. I should be charging the bastard rent—though my head isn’t exactly prime real-estate, never has been. While dear ole’ Luci and I may be on marginally better terms now, we aren’t going to win any awards for BFFs of the year any time soon. He is annoying. So fucking annoying. 

“You are aware that I know what you are thinking, aren’t you? I mean I’m a part of you now, Sam!” 

Speak of the devil. That phrase has never been quite so literal before. 

“Aww… c’mon. Don’t be like that. You can’t ignore me forever! Who do you think is letting you take this imaginary little jaunt out of the pit? You should be thankful really.”

He’s in my head. It’s all just in my head. I’m not there anymore. I can’t be. I’m here with Dean and Bobby while we figure out how to deal with Cas deciding he’s going to be the new God—which is something even my mind wouldn’t have been able to come up with. One point towards insanity rather than the cage. Great. I also highly doubt I’d ever just stab Cas in the back in my head either. Or that my mind would then come up with the scenario of Cas trying to get us all to literally kneel before him, him firing off a bunch of bullshit, and then disappearing off to god knows where only leaving a threat in his wake. So that’s what, three more points towards insanity? Well, with that astounding tally in mind, it’s time for me to put on a happy face and make an appearance.

“Hey Dean.” I’m still not sure how well this is going to go down. 

“Ah, you’re walking and talking,” says Dean. 

“My, Sammy isn’t your brother an observant one.” I want to tell the bastard to shut up, but somehow I doubt my brother would find me yelling at my delusions of Lucifer to be sign of good health. So I take the high road and ignore him. Lucifer I mean, not Dean.

“Yeah. I put on my own socks, the whole nine.” Sarcasm and jokes-- a classic sign of Winchester deflection and good(ish) health.

“Well, that’s…I mean… You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. Sammy, tell him just how fine you are,” Lucifer practically purred. I’m not sure if I find it more disturbing that the devil was just checking me out—like a good solid once over from head to toe check out and some serious emphasis on the word fine—or the fact that it’s the devil in my head that was doing it. Seriously. I am so not the narcissistic brother in our family. Right. Moving on and totally avoiding that train of thought.

“Yeah. My head hurts a little, but basically.”

“Seriously?” Dean says with a raise of his eyebrows. The amount of doubt in Dean’s voice could feed a third world country, but it doesn’t matter. We both need me to be okay; physically I was fine and that’s all that mattered at the moment. 

“Look, man, I’m surprised as you are but, yeah, I swear.” 

“Good! No reason putting a gift horse under a microscope, right?” It’s a sure sign of how badly we both needed me to be okay that he accepted that so easily. But I guess we had other shit to deal with, and if the whole Castiel thing threw me off kilter, I could only imagine how badly fucked up it was making Dean. So we do what we do best: throw ourselves into the hunt and avoid all the messy personal shit—like feelings—as best we can. The downside is that this time it’s Cas were trying to hunt down, and we can’t do anything until we know where he is and what he’s doing as the self proclaimed God. Which leads to more time for me to perfect playing at normal and gives Dean time to go dick around with the Impala. 

“How cute. You’ve gone bat shit. You think you can be normal, or even fake it passingly? C’mon, Sammy. Even you aren’t that good an actor,” says Lucifer. I’m still not sure if I should say anything to him. I mean, maybe if I ignore it, it’ll just go away. Of course, he has to go and crush all of my hopes by saying, “Right, like that’ll ever happen. You’re stuck with me.” 

“Why?”

“Why, what Sammy?” He’s looking at me with bright blue eyes widened in fake shock.

Really, the wide-eyed innocent act now? You know exactly what I mean, you prick. Of course, all he does is smirk at that. 

“Stupid really doesn’t look good on you,” I say to Lucifer.

“Oh? And what does look good on me? Hmm? I could look like someone else, if you wanted. An ex lover? A fallen comrade? A random hot chick? I mean, if I’m in your head, then I am what you make me right? Unless I’m not in your head. Own up to it Sammy. You and I, we’re still trapped in that cage. But hell, given the cage or living in your head—well, this is prime real estate in comparison. So either way, get used to me.” 

Wonderful. My best case scenario is that I’m crazy. It’s either that or Lucifer’s trapped in my head. Shit. That was it wasn’t it? 

Right. Back to the ignoring and avoidance tactic again. Time to hit the books. Who knows? Maybe they held something about the whole becoming a god thing. If Gabriel were still around I could probably get some firsthand knowledge on angels becoming gods.

“I never wanted to kill him you know. But who am I to try and deny God’s will?” Lucifer said that last bit with more than just a spoonful of bitterness. 

And I kind of got it. Sort of. I mean, being destined as a vessel for an angel, even a fallen one, tended to give you a slightly jaded view on fate and how much control a person has over their own lives --especially considering that my angel and my brothers were supposed to duke it out and bring about the apocalypse. Still, that didn’t mean that free will wasn’t worth fighting for; there was more than just the easy way out.

“Why couldn’t you have picked a Satanic worshipper as a vessel? I’m sure they would have loved to have this much insight into The Great Lucifer’s mind.”

“You think my mind’s great? How sweet. Sammy, don’t ask questions you already know the answers to. Besides, don’t you have some reading to do? I’m sure that’s far more important than being sympathetic to the devil in your mind.” And he was gone. Where in the hell do hallucinations go in there time off? Better yet, had talking with the devil seriously just made him leave? 

Right. Book time. 

\--- 

None of the books seemed to hold anything. They didn’t hold any sort of magical wisdom that could just fix it all, make everything ‘right.’ Okay, so I figured it’d be a slim chance, but I couldn’t waste around time waiting like Dean and Bobby were doing. I had to have something to focus on. Still, the books aren’t helping and Dean is bitching about a broken toaster. Like a broken toaster is a legitimate problem anymore. Whatever. Off to the kitchen I go.

“It won’t toast the toast.” Dean says while staring at the toaster and shaking it in his hands, as if that’ll somehow magically fix the damn thing. He can fix a car but he can’t fix a toaster?

“Dean, you toast bread, not toast. What would be the point of toasting toast?” I seriously doubt the intelligence of my brother sometimes. I mean, really?

“Shut up, Samantha, you know what I mean.” Oh great and now he’s glaring at me. So, like the good little brother that I am I set to work trying to fix the toaster. At least it isn’t a useless book or an even more useless imaginary Lucifer. Pretty quick I figure out I need a damn screwdriver to take the stupid thing apart so I can figure out why it won’t toast toast for Dean. 

“Whatever. I’m going to go get a screwdriver so I can see what you did to break the toaster. Please don’t try to blend the blender while I’m gone, okay?” And I’m off before he can get another word in. 

For all the damn drawers of tools Bobby has in his basement, you’d think it’d be a little easier to find a screwdriver. I don’t even need a fancy one, just a regular Phillips will do. 

Apparently, my frustration means more mental break down fun. I can hear it. Cruel laughter and chains that rattle. I can see it. One of the more extended locations of the cage. A place bathed in bloody light full of rusted chains and meat hooks, chunks of flesh still impaled upon them. I’ve got a wrench in my hand to fight off the fake realm of my imaginary vision of the cage. God, I hope it’s all imaginary. The things Michael could do with meat hooks…

“Hey Sam! What are you doing? Taking a nap down here?”

I whirl around with the wrench still held firmly in my grip. I can’t help it that I’m beyond a little freaked and definitely on the defensive at the moment. But it’s just Bobby. And I’m in Bobby’s basement. Right. I was looking for a screwdriver. To fix the toaster. So it could toast toast. Definitely not in a cage of any sort. 

“It’s Cas, we think. Come on.” Bobby says gruffly. I can see the thoughts spinning around in his head, how he has to know now that I’m still not fixed. I’m a broken mess. But he doesn’t say anything. He gives me a look and heads back up the stairs. Seems like we’d all rather just not deal with the fact that I’ve got a few marbles missing. Spotting a damn screwdriver on the floor I grab it and scramble up after him.

The T.V. is on and some announcer is taking about the sudden deaths of over two hundred religious leaders. It couldn’t be, right? Even power and whatever else tripped up, Cas wouldn’t just kill over two hundred people. Of course, that’s when the woman on screen talks.

“We all saw him. No beard, no robe. He was young…and…and sexy. He had a raincoat.” 

Shit. We might all be more screwed than we thought.


	3. Jump in the Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter in and we're finally getting a bit further off from the cannon direct path. Title is from the song Save Me by Shinedown. Let me know what ya think of the fic so far!

It wasn’t only the religious leaders, either. No. Cas had to go and take out the KKK—which, yeah, really wasn’t so bad—and the motivational speakers. C’mon. Motivational speakers? Sure, the alleged self-help shit can get old as hell, but still.

“Motivational speakers?” At least it was giving me crazy beyond my own crazy to deal with. 

“Yeah, I’m not sure new Cas gets irony any better than old Cas. Of course, old Cas wouldn’t smite Madison Square Garden just to prove a point. He is off the deep end of the deep end. And there’s no slowing down,” says Dean as he roughly slams down the hood of the car. 

“So what? Try to talk to him again?” I asked Dean.

“Sam.” I never thought Dean would be the one giving up on Cas before me. Those two have had a seriously freakish bond, but maybe that’s why. This whole thing is hitting him so much harder; it’s all so much more personal.

“Dean, all we can do is talk to the guy.” After all, stabbing him with the angel blade didn’t work, so why not try out words?

“He’s not a guy. He’s God. And he’s pissed. And when God gets righteous, you get the hell out of the way. Haven’t you read the Bible?” retorts Dean, shaking his head back and forth.

“I’m with him on this one. You’re going to need more than some pleading words to get baby Angel back.” Lucifer says, injecting in his two cents for all it’s worth. Oh dear God-- except not God, because apparently that was Cas now--my brother and Lucifer are agreeing with each other. Maybe we didn’t survive the apocalypse after all. 

“I guess…” There was no point in arguing with both of them. Loath as I am to admit it, this wasn’t something worth fighting over. Not now. 

“Cas is never coming back. He’s lied to us, he used us, he cracked your gourd like it was nothing. No more talk. We have spent enough on him.” Dean’s eyes are cold and hard as he says this.

“Okay.” What else am I supposed to say to that? I’d like to argue, to say that Cas is only doing what he thinks is right. Admittedly, his definition of ‘right’ is off the charts on the crazy scale. We’ve all done some seriously fucked up shit because we thought it was the right thing to do. Fuck, just look at me and Ruby and the blood and Lilith. That whole situation was a no win scenario, but still we got through it—we dealt with it. But for some reason, we can’t deal with this.

“Hand me that socket wrench.” Right. I know a dismissal when I see one, so I had him the wrench and go. Let him work on the Impala and sweat out his frustrations on his own. I headed back inside. 

I grab a few books and sit down at the desk in the kitchen to read. It used to be that I loved to read. Now I’m not so sure. There are only so many books you can read on the lore and only so many times you can read them. But, I have to do something to keep me distracted, to keep me from feeling useless. And Luci seems to have found somewhere better to be since agreeing with my brother, so my own devil can’t keep me company. I mean, what good is being crazy if there isn’t some entertainment value in it?

I’m losing myself in my thoughts. That’s when I hear it. Seems like my delusions haven’t abandoned me yet. Too bad this one is about the cage; I’d rather prefer Lucifer at the moment. The ceiling is cracking and I know it’s only going to get worse. I can feel my heart rate skyrocketing and my breathing pick up, until it’s all together cut off. A chain slick with blood has fallen through the crack and is doing a great job impersonating a boa constrictor as it winds itself around my neck. I can hear them in the background. I know I’m not there anymore, I can’t be, but it all feels so damn real. My lungs are seizing, trying to get air through the collapsed passage of my throat and the world is already growing dimmer. I wonder what happens if you die in your own mind.

“Wake up, Sammy.”

The first thought racing through my mind when I jolt awake is that there are worse things than having the devil be your wake up call. How has this become my life? Either way, I’ve got to get out--escape the kitchen for a bit, escape my solitude. Maybe see what Dean and Bobby are up to and try to further convince them of just how okay I am—at least as okay as I can believably enough fake. I practically flee from the house. I meander through the scrap yard until I hear voices; rather unsurprisingly they are coming from the garage, but it’s what those voices are saying that keeps me from joining them.

“How is that kid even vertical? I mean, Cas broke his damn piñata,” says Bobby. Sure Bobby, tell me how you really feel. I mean the concern is touching and all, but I don’t need them watching me even closer than they already are. The damn incident in the basement was bad enough.

“I know,” responds Dean.

“I mean, I get how he came to help us back at the lab. Adrenaline. Sure, but now?”

“Well… he says he’s okay.” Yep. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 

“How?” Bobby asks, and I’m sure the look on his face right now displays a whole world of doubt.

I’m not that’s how. But hey, people say that if you fake something long enough it can become the truth right? I’ll just fake my way to normal, seems easy enough. 

“It’s not very polite to eavesdrop you know,” reprimands Lucifer. Holy hell. I definitely did not jump just then. Nope. Lucifer sneaking up on me is very, very un-scary. 

“Really? I’m getting lessons in proper etiquette from you of all people? Besides it’s hardly polite to appear out of nowhere are scare the shit out of people,” I retort.

“I’m not a ‘people’ Sammy, you should know that. And while it might not be polite, it’s a hell of lot more fun. You’re the only one who can see me, I’ve got to get my kicks somehow.” 

Wonderful. I’m now the leading source of entertainment for the devil. That’s a ringing endorsement. Get your own Sammy now, while supplies last, its devil approved. Great. And now the bastard is laughing at me. 

“You have my stamp of approval alright, but I’m really not the type to share my toys.”

“Wow. All the kids must have hated you in kindergarten. Is there a word for angel children? You know, like cats have kittens and dogs have puppies and ducks have ducklings? Are they like angelings?” I think I may have finally snapped. I’m seriously discussing angel genealogy with Lucifer. God help us all. Or maybe Gods help us all? Then again I don’t know that I’ve met a god I liked. Oh, yeah, I’ve definitely got more than a few screws loose. 

“They would be called our young if we had them. The creation and procreation of angels doesn’t happen in the human sense. As far as Gods go, besides Father, and perhaps Gabriel when he was trappeezing around as Loki, I find them all inadequate and incredibly petty and dull. My brother may have been a tad on the petty side, but at least he was never boring. Even before…” Lucifer trails off. Great. I’ve succeeded in making the devil melancholic as well as learning that angels don’t have kids. The devil shot me a look. “Don’t you have a conversation to be eavesdropping in on?”

“Uhm, right.” Back to the impolite habit of listening in on others it is. No more mildly enlightening conversations with the devil. 

I tuned into the sound of Dean talking again.

“No. You wanna know why? Because we never catch a break. So why would we this time? I just… just this one thing. You know? But I’m not dumb.”

“That’s debatable,” Lucifer mutters. Dean may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, that’d probably be the table saw, but he isn’t exactly dumb. He just has frequent moments of stupidity where he wants to toast toast.

“Shh… we’re eavesdropping, not being commentators remember?” I say. Shit. I’m bonding with the devil over listening in on how fucked up my brother thinks I am. Just another reason why I can’t let him see he’s right. 

“I’m not going to get my hopes up just to get kicked in the daddy-pills again.” I’m going to take that as my cue to enter the damn garage. No need to give them any further time to discuss my crumbled mental state. 

“Hey. How are you feeling sport?” Bobby asks me as I walk in to the garage. 

Like shit. I’m having sort of flashbacks to the cage and Lucifer and I are bonding. How the hell do you think I’m feeling, Bobby?

“Can’t complain!” At least not out loud.

“Great. What’s the word?” asks Dean while trying to pretend like he and Bobby weren’t just discussing me. Fuck. Right, I should have a reason for being out here.

“Tell them about the publishing house, Sammy. It was on TV while you were sleep reading. It exploded, people were killed, all that jazz. If this were a game were killing people gave you points, little angel baby would be racking them up. Seriously, he’s almost giving me a run for the money of ‘Angel with the Most Kills’, and I’d hate to lose my high score,” whines Lucifer. Killing people is not an arcade game. And apparently Lucifer is now feeling kind enough to sort of bail me out. Weird. I should say something so that Dean and Bobby will quiet with the expecting looks. Right.

“Well, a publishing house literally exploded about an hour ago. The guy has a body count that’s really getting up there.” It’d have to be to have Luci worrying about his high score. “We gotta do something.” Besides bitch about me behind my back about how I’ve lost it.

“What we’ve got to do is hunt the son of a bitch. Unfortunately, I lost my God guns.” Bobby says with a roll of his eyes. So we really have resorted to hunting down Cas. I’d almost feel bad for him if it weren’t for the fact that Bobby had a point. How the hell were we supposed to kill God with a capital G?

“Well, I mean is there some kind of heavenly weapon? Maybe something out of that angel arsenal that Balthazar stole? There has to be something that can hurt him.” 

“He’s God, Sam.” Dean says shrugging after a pregnant pause. Really Dean? I must have missed that memo somewhere. “But there might be someone.” And with those words, it all was going to go downhill fast. Because I have a sneaking suspicion of just who that someone is, and while that someone may be able to help, there is no way in hell that I’m happy about it. Death was never a fun man to tango with, though neither is Crowley.

\---

Getting Crowley to us is easy, a devil’s trap scrawled on the basement floor will do; it’s getting of information from him that I’m worried about. I mean, we summon him and the first thing he says in no, that’s generally not a good sign.

“My new boss is going to kill me for even talking to you lads,” proclaims Crowley with a slight wave of his hands. Slight because they’re currently filled with a bottle of booze in the right and an empty glass in the left.

“Well, you’re lucky we’re not stabbing you in your skuzzy face, you little piece…” says Dean. C’mon brother, the king of hell says he’s got a new boss and you want to threaten him and start a pissing contest? 

“Whoa, wait! What new boss?” 

“Castiel, you giraffe,” Crowley is giving me a condescending look as he says this. Just because I’m taller than most doesn’t make me a giraffe.

“Aww Sammy, you aren’t a giraffe, your neck is clearly not that long. And you aren’t spotted. Or yellow.” Lucifer kindly points out. Great. Just what I need: the resident in my head making an appearance. As if Crowley didn’t give me enough to deal with. I’m pretty sure I’ve maxed out my quota of dealing with dicks from hell for the day, thank you.

“Cas is your boss?” Oblivious the devil in the room, Bobby was carrying on with the interrogation it seems.

“He is everybody’s boss. What do you think he’s going to do if he finds out we’ve been conspiring? You do want to conspire, don’t you?” asks Crowley. I don’t like that look. Crowley keeps on glancing at me, like he knows something I don’t, which I am sure he knows many things I don’t ever want to even think about, but the glances are still unnerving.

“No. We want you to just stand there and look pretty.” Bobby says rolling his eyes.

And now the devil that no one else can see is laughing his ass off. And what the hell, it almost seems like Crowley heard him laughing. Which is not possible. So very, very not possible, unless he is somehow creeping around in my head and can hear Luci that way.

“No one is creeping around in your head besides me. And you should be used to me by now.” Yep, my own personal devil on the shoulder, he could almost count for the angel part of that equation too. But Lucifer was definitely not acting as my sense of moral righteousness or as my conscience. 

“Listening.” Crowley was looking between Lucifer and myself as he says that. And I just know. I know that’s his clever little way of saying he’s not only listening to our proposition. Fuck. I think my mental problems have just multiplied exponentially.

“We need a spell to bind Death.” Dean states. Well, at least now he’s looking incredulously at Dean now rather than freaking me the fuck out.

“Bind? Enslave Death? You having a laugh?” The wrinkles across Crowley’s brow keep on growing as his eyebrows just keep on rising higher. Yes, Crowley, we are all having a laugh. Because our once favorite angel has gone psycho God and I’m having a mental breakdown and Lucifer apparently isn’t quite as trapped in my head as I thought. It’s all just hysterical.

“Lucifer did it.” Dean, don’t even go there. You don’t have to see the bastard smile smugly when you say that kind of shit.

“How cute, your brother wants to be like me now. Michael would be so jealous.” We both seem to share a mutual feeling of dread when Lucifer mentions Michael.

“You’re a bastard, you know that?” I mutter it under my breath, so that only Lucifer can hear. Lucifer just throws me a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes and, well, if anyone else hears it, they don’t show it. 

“That’s Lucifer,” says Crowley. Oh, shit. Because Crowley’s looking at me as he says that and subtly tilting his head in the direction of Lucifer. Not good. Not good at all. Even if I think Crowley is agreeing that Lucifer is a bastard. Time to change the subject a bit.

“A spell’s a spell.”

“You really believe you can handle that kind of horsepower? You’re delusional.” Crowley proclaims. Again with the pointed looks in my direction. I’m surprised that Bobby and Dean haven’t noticed anything yet. Okay, I’m surprised Bobby hasn’t caught on yet.

“Death is the only player on the board left that has the kind of juice to take Cas,” says Dean sounding resigned. Dean’s gotten pretty good at hiding how much it hurts him to have to say that –that they have to wipe Cas off the map.

“They’ll both mash us like peas. Why should I help with a suicide mission?” Crowley asks waving around the bottle still grasped firmly in his hand.

“Look! Do you really want Cas running the universe?” Questions Bobby. Crowley pours himself a glass of whatever he’s been holding. Bobby’s got him hooked, now. We all know how much Crowley likes sharing power. Now, with a little help from Crowley all we’ve got to do is wrangle Death. Should be easy enough.


	4. It's Not Our Job to Make Anyone Believe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the next chapter, title is from the song Listening to Freddy Mercury by Emery (it's a kick ass song). Let me know what ya think (the good and the bad!).

“Um… Hello? Death?” Dean calls out. Right Dean, because calling out to Death right after we’ve summoned him and trapped him is going to be a great idea. I suppose I should catch you up to speed. So after our wonderful meeting with Crowley, he sent us the spell to trap and summon Death—which is how we now have Death summoned and trapped. Nifty how that works out isn’t it? Anyway, most of the ingredients were the standard mumbo-jumbo, but we had to get an act of God crystallized forever-- aka a fulgurate or the crystallized form that lightning makes when it strikes sand. Cue us driving nine hours to the house of a winning bidder of our crystallized act of God. We break in, with minimal difficulty. Dean ties up and gags the couple that the house belongs to after having knocked out the security guard roaming the grounds. Actually, they are getting to be witnesses right now, while still being in their pajamas. From there we summoned Death, making the whole house rumble and shake, and that brings us to the now. Where my brother is calling out to Death.

“You’re joking,” responds Death. And doesn’t Death look positively thrilled to be here decked out in black with a face gaunt enough to be befitting of his title.

“I’m sorry, Death. This isn’t what it seems.”

“Seems like you bound me,” says Death, raising up his hands to show a sort of energy formed shackles around his wrists. 

“For good reason, okay? Just hear us out. Uhm… Fried pickle chip? They’re the best in the state,” offers Dean, with a bizarre sort of smile on his face.

“Did your brother really just offer Death a fried pickle chip after you’ve bound the bastard? How can you still defend his intelligence level, I mean really Sammy? Like a fried pickle chip is going to placate Death,” says Lucifer. Because having Lucifer and Death in the same room is such a fan-fucking-tastic plan. Then again, no one else can see him, even if there was that freaky thing with Crowley. Crowley is strange enough anyway, though.

“That easy to soothe me, you think?” asks Death while he starts walking towards me with a gentle swing of his cane. No, not really. But apparently my brother thinks fried pickle chips are the new instant cure all. “This is about Sam’s mental issues, I assume?” Shit. This won’t be good.

“What?” questions Dean, while both Bobby and he switch their gazes over from Death to me. Neither one is looking very happy at the moment.

“Sorry, Sam. One wall per customer. Now unbind me,” commands Death, once more raising his arms into the air.

“Aww Sammy… you know it’d take more than a measly wall to keep me out now don’t you?” asks Lucifer. Hopefully ignoring the devil becomes easier with time. Somehow, I doubt that’ll be the case. Time to distract Dean away from my ‘mental issues’—seriously who would call having Lucifer stuck in your head a mental issue besides Death?

“We can’t. Yet.” I say, and hope to hell that this doesn’t end up badly for all of us.

“This isn’t going to end well,” postulates Death as he paces around the room, a study in the couple who owned the forever crystallized act of god’s house, and confirms my fears.

“Yes, because everything always ends well when Death is involved. Always,” says Lucife,r voice oozing with sarcasm. God—uh... Loki, I guess? At least it doesn’t seem quiet as fucked up to be referring to a dead Archangel than it does to say god and think of Cas-- I really wish Lucifer came with an off button, or even volume control.

“We need you to kill God.” Dean states. Well, don’t beat around the bush or anything, Dean. Just hang it all out there.

“Pardon?” Death’s head snaps up with that, his dark eyes practically popping out of his head and his eyebrows are arched to the ceiling. Looks like Death wasn’t expecting that request.

“Kill God. You heard right. Your… Honor,” spits out Bobby in an oddly polite but begrudging fashion. He steps closer to Death. If his speaking wasn’t proof enough of how badly be needed the help, then this certainly spoke volumes. In any other situation I think hearing Bobby call someone your honor would make me laugh my ass off. Right now I’m restraining it to hysterical giggles in my head. Dear Go-Loki. I think Lucifer is laughing with me, or at me. Either way it’s strange.

“What makes you think I can do that?” asks Death, all the while cocking his head to the left like a suspicious bird of prey.

“Perhaps because you are Death with a capital D. The end of everything.” Lucifer’s waving his hands around in the air while he says this. Wonderful, more commentary from the devil. Instead of just having one running commentary going on in my head I now have two, hand actions included. Peachy.

“You told me,” says Dean. His eyes are dark and demanding from under a furrowed brow. I’m not sure that any of us quite know how to treat Death, even if we do happen to have him bound.

“Why should I?” Asks Death, almost as if asking to the question to a small child who hasn’t yet grasped the way the world works.

“Because… we said so, and we’re the boss of you.” Dean sort of questioningly declares. Both Bobby and I are giving him looks at that and all we get is a wide-eyed look in return. Did my brother seriously just use the reasoning ‘because we said so’ in regards to Death? I mean, Death. Yeah, this really isn’t going to end well. “I mean… respectfully.” Dean murmurs the last bit out. I can see his throat swallowing from across the room. Nice save.

“Amazing,” proclaims Cas. 

Holy shit there’s a Cas in the room now trench coat and all. A Cas whose face is painted in blood. If Elizabeth Balthory ever had a cosmetic line, Castiel would make a great spokesperson. Or wait. That isn’t blood, or rather Cas is looking a bit like Lucifer way back when. Like his vessel is starting to decay away or break down or something. Right, keep calm… he can probably smell fear. 

“Cas.”

“Oooh nice Sammy. Your voice was only a little squeaky and a tad on the side of whispery. Really impressive,” says Lucifer. Oh, just shut the fuck up already. This really isn’t the time.

“I didn’t want to kill you, but now…” Cas says as he flicks his eyes to the floor, almost giving off a genuinely false sense of remorse. It’s saying things like that that leads me closer to actually wanting to kill you, Cas. I mean really, who says shit like that? He isn’t some reluctant comic book villain or even an anti-hero for that matter.

“You can’t kill us,” declares Dean as a simple matter of fact. He isn’t about to back down to Castiel anytime soon. Yes, Dean, lets further aggravate the God who already wants us dead. That’s a wonderful plan, why didn’t I think of it?

“You’ve erased any nostalgia I had for you, Dean.” Cas is raising up his right hand while he says this, fingers ready to just snap and make us disappear.

“Death is our bitch,” says Dean. Great phrasing brother, considering we’re still trying to convince him to end Cas for us. On the bright side, it does at least make Cas lower his hand. “We ain’t gonna die, even if God pulls the trigger.”

“Annoying little protozoa, aren’t they?” Death asks with a twitch of his eye brows, his manner stays nonchalant as ever.

“Yes, they really are. But they’re so cute and entertaining too.” Lucifer is practically squealing as he says this, like a child would over a puppy or something. Just what I always wanted to hear: Lucifer agreeing with Death about how annoying and relatively insignificant humans are.

“God? You’re looking awfully like a mutated angel to me. Your vessel’s melting. You’re going to explode,” says Death. Face blank as he simply states the facts as he sees them. So we should what? Throw Cas in a giant God-proof microwave to speed up the process? Then boom, no more Cas?

“No, I’m not. When I’ve finished my work, I’ll repair myself,” responds Cas, his voice no less matter of facts than Death’s. He really believes what he is saying is the truth. I don’t get why he has to finish his work first. Why not just patch yourself up as you go? Not that I’m suggesting anything to drag out the existence of God Cas or anything, it’d just be nice if we could still get our Cas back.

“You think you can because you think you’re simply under the weight of all those souls, yes? But that’s not the worst problem. There are things much older than souls in Purgatory, and you gulped those in too,” says Death. It almost seems like this is going to be some lead in to story time with Death. I’m sure that’d make a great kid’s show. Even if his stories are all about soulless creatures—he could even do an episode on me. Either way, it’s not real comforting information to learn. Cas is drawing power from super old creatures from Purgatory. I can only imagine what kind of soulless creatures would call purgatory home. 

“Irrelevant. I control them,” states Cas. Dean’s jaw looks about ready to hit the floor as he looks back and forth between Death and Castiel. Bobby and I just stand there processing the information, thankfully with our mouths still fastened shut.

“For the moment,” states Death. And Dean still looks like he’s trying to catch flies or jumping fish or something, his mouth hanging open in a state of shocked disbelief.

“Wait. Uh, what older things?” asks Dean, finally managing to figure out how the hinge in his jaw works again. It’s moments like these that confirm that Dean does have at least a few brain cells, because I am all for the gathering of information while simultaneously stopping the standoff between Death and Cas—my brother no longer looking like a gaping fish is just a bonus.

“Long before God created Angel and man, he made the first beasts—the Leviathans,” begins Death. And wow, look-y there. Seems like this really is going to turn into story time with Death. He’s like a much creepier and pastier version of Mr. Rogers.

“Let me tell you Sammy boy, if those things escape angel baby there, well, the apocalypse will look like happy times in a bouncy castle by comparison. Even I wouldn’t want them to roam free,” says Lucifer with a slight shake to his head. Right. We’ve managed to find something that even Lucifer doesn’t want roaming free. Why does this always seem to happen?

“Leviathans?” Dean repeats in the form of a question. My brother is turning into an echo.

“I personally found them entertaining, but he was concerned they’d chomp the entire petri dish, so he locked them away,” says Death as he carries on with his lovely little tale. And doesn’t that story sound rather familiar. So what, Purgatory is going to be Cas’ version of the cage? 

Death continued, “Why do you think he created Purgatory? To keep those clever, poisonous things out.” Sounds like it. “Now, Castiel has swallowed them. He’s the one thin membrane between the old ones and your home.” I take it the giant microwave plan is out of the question now, unless giant microwaves also kill Leviathans. 

“Enough,” interrupts Cas. I guess he doesn’t like where this story is going. I’m not overly fond of it either, but I’m also not the one who has creatures rampaging through his body either. Nope, I’ve just got my own version of the devil trapped in my head.

“Stupid little soldier you are,” says Death in a patronizing tone. Seems like it isn’t just us humans that he likes to talk down to as if we were children, though I suppose to him we are just that. 

“Why? Because I dared open a door that he shut?” Castiel asks angrily approaching Death and his eyes dialed in to kill. That door had probably been kept shut for a reason, ever think of that bit Cas? “Where is he?” Great. It’s existential crisis time of the angel variety. “I did a service, taking his place,” he says.

“Service? Settling petty vendettas?” asks Death. I’m not so sure I like where this is going and Cas is up in Death’s face now.

“No,” responds Cas, before Deaths lips have even stopped moving. “I’m cleaning up one mess after another—selflessly.” By killing hundreds of people, including the motivational speakers? Seems like a rather messy cleanup process to me.

“Quite the humanitarian,” says Death.

“And how would you know?” Cas asks taking a step even farther into the bubble of Death’s personal space. “What are you really? A flyswatter.” Did Cas really just say that? Oh shit. Well, maybe we’ve got Death on our side now after all.

“Destined to swat you, I think,” retorts Death.

“Oh, is it witty banter time? How fun! That was always one of the best parts,” cheers Lucifer. Only the devil himself would look that gleeful about a petty fight between Death and ‘God.’

“Unless I take you first.” Cas fires back at Death.

“Perhaps not so witty on the banter. I think angel baby needs some lessons,” says Lucifer, his voice lacking some of the enthusiasm from before. Is it pathetic that I fully agree with Luci right now? C’mon, Cas, you hung around me and Dean long enough that you should be able to come up with a more clever quip than that.

“Really bought his own press, this one,” says Death while turning his back to Castiel and walking unhurriedly away. “Please, Cas. I know God, and you, sir, are no God.” He’s turned back around, and while Death and Cas aren’t standing as close as they were before, there is a definite showdown going on. This is going to turn violent fast.

“Alright, put your junk away, both of you. Look, call him want you want. Just kill him now!” exclaims Dean, sounding exasperated but nevertheless desperate. Death to Cas, and hopefully the Leviathan creatures as well. They’re not exactly something that I’d like to ever meet. Oh, and now Cas has turned away from death and is glaring at Dean. That bromance has definitely gone down the toilet.

“Fine,” says Death, bringing up his left hand to smite, kill, or do something to Cas. That is at least until Cas, with a snap of his fingers, breaks the binding we had on Death. “Thank you. Shall we kickbox now?” They’re going to kickbox to the death? Okay, then. Cas gives Death an odd look, like he doesn’t quite get it, and Death walks away and sits in a chair munching on Dean’s fried pickle chips all the while. “I had a tingle I’d be reaping someone very, very soon. Don’t worry—not you.” Oh right. We’ve got an audience. Forgot about them. The couple looked, understandably, freaked out. “Well, he was in a hurry.” Sure enough Cas is gone. He fled for the hills. Fuck.


	5. It's All About the Song in My Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! So this chapter hasn't been betaed (my beta's busy with schooling and such at the moment) so it probably has way more mistakes than normal. However, I figured that I didn't want to get off schedule (or disappoint anyone who is actually following this) so here is the raw version of it, at least for now. This is also where it starts to really diverge from canon because really, there just aren't enough fics out there with a Sam and Luci bromance. Title comes from the song Composing by Boys Night Out.

“Uhm…” My brother is looking rather bashful about the whole not being able to kill Cas before he fled and now being stuck with Death thing. Death, who isn’t exactly bound anymore.

“Shut up, Dean,” snaps Death, as he finishes off the remainders of Dean’s fried pickle chips. “I’m not here to tie your shoes every time you trip. I warned you about those souls how long ago? Long enough to stop that fool. And here we are again, with your little planet on the edge of immolation.” Apparently finished with his reprimand, Death stands back up from the chair. Though, I will admit, even if it’s a lecture I don’t want, the end of the world does seem to be becoming a rather common occurrence.

“Well, I’m sorry. All right? I’ve been trying to save this planet, so maybe you should find somebody better to tip off.” Dean’s anger is rising as he says this. And I get it. It seems like it always ends up being us. It doesn’t help that we’ve got self-esteem issues—among others—to high hell already.

“Maybe I should spend my effort on a better planet. Well, it’s been amusing,” says Death, as he starts walking off to where ever it is he goes. Amusing isn’t exactly the word I’d use, but sure. Shit. Does he mean he’s leaving?

“Wait. Hold on, hold on. Just—can you give us something? You have to care a little bit about what happens to us.” Fuck. I hope he cares at least enough to give us some kind of hint, because crazy God Cas was bad enough, but now that we know he’s become low income housing for old soulless creatures and is ready to bust? That makes things a little more complicated.

“You know, I really don’t. But I do find that little angel arrogant,” says Death with a strong emphasis on the arrogant part. Looks like Cas didn’t make a very good impression. 

“Great. Let’s go with that,” responds Dean, the words spilling out of his mouth in a rush. I’m with my brother on this one; I’ll go with whatever will fix this. 

“Your only hope is to have him return it all to Purgatory. Quickly,” Death says with another entitled tilt of his head. This really is turning out a lot like the whole getting Lucifer back in his box thing. 

“I take mild offense to being compared to an ‘it’. Even an ‘It’ like the Leviathans,” states Lucifer putting his hands on his hips. Really? That’s the part of all of this that the damn devil takes offense to? Time to get back to the conversations in the real world—or at least the world where everyone is sharing in verbal communication.

“We need a door.” I say, because really how else are we supposed to get him back? Believe him away? Go back to the giant microwave plan? What?

“You have everything you need at that lab. Get him to return there and compel him to give up the power,” states Death. It’s just that easy huh? Compel him how? I doubt trying to appeal to his delicate sensibilities is going to work.

“Compel?” Dean asks with a raised eyebrow and a clear look of ‘how the hell are we supposed to do that?’ reflecting in his eyes. Sounds like Dean’s on the about the same page as I am.

“Figure it out.” Death makes everything sound so simple. If only it all were so paint by numbers easy. 

“But that door only opens in the eclipse and that’s over,” says Bobby. Ever the practical one. 

“I’ll make another,” says Death, once again talking to us like we foolish mortals just can’t comprehend anything, because for him, it really is that easy. “3:59 Sunday morning, just before dawn.” That’s awfully specific. Astronomers are going to fun with that. “Be punctual. Don’t thank me. Clean up your mess.” He points at Dean as he says this last bit, before walking away again. Death really is such a nice and altruistic guy. “Try to bind me again,” says Death pausing before he leaves. “You’ll die before you start. Nice pickle chips by the way.” And with that illuminating statement, Death is gone, waltzing on out of the room. We’re stuck with a couple of tied up home owners, who we are now setting free while they’re still dazed and confused by the whole affair, and are making our way out of and away from their house as quickly as we can. Time to hit the road and get to Bobby’s. I’m going to skip the road time and jump right into us figuring out how the hell to fix it all, which apparently, back at Bobby’s, Dean thinks he can do through the excessive use of booze. I walk into the kitchen and what do I see? My brother staring at a laptop, feet propped up on the table and a glass which has likely already been refilled a few times in his hand. 

“You want some coffee with that?”

“It’s 6:00 p.m. somewhere,” replies Dean, with a swirl of his glass of whisky. Sure Dean, it’s every time somewhere, doesn’t mean it’s always time to drink. 

“We got to hit the road. I mean, how are we supposed to get Cas to that lab by friggin’ 3:59?” You’d think Death could’ve given us a better due date.

“We don’t.” He isn’t even looking away from the harsh glare of the computer screen as he says it. Please tell me I’m just hallucinating that bit. This isn’t just giving up on Cas. This is potentially handing over the Earth to a bunch of soulless creatures that God—the real one—felt the need to banish from the world and built Purgatory to house.

“What do you mean, ‘We don’t’?”

“I mean, we can’t bring the horse to water, and we can’t make it drink. Why fool ourselves?” asks Dean in a rhetoric manner. He really is giving up isn’t he?

“Dean, look, I know you think that Cas is gone…”

“It’s cause he is.”

“He’s not! He’s in there somewhere, Dean. I know it.” And I do. As cheesy as it sounds, I can feel it in my bones. Cas is struggling and he’s so many kinds of messed up that he makes me look perfectly sound of mind, but he’s still in there. He’s just incredibly misguided.

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.” My response has got Dean raising his eyebrows and giving me a sort of smug look. I don’t know, not in the factual sense anyways. “But, look, I was pretty far gone sometimes myself, and you never gave up on me.”

“Yeah, and it turns out that you’re about the same open book as you’ve always been,” says Dean as he sits up and grabs a bottle that is far more empty than full, and refills his glass. That’s not fair. It’s really not, even if Dean is telling the truth. I’ve always had reasons for keeping things from him. “Mental issues? Really? What’s that even mean? And I got to find that out from Death?” Dean’s shaking his head at me now, his own anger at the whole thing more than apparent.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“How about not lie? How about tell me that you’ve got crazy crap climbing those walls?” If you only knew Dean, if you only knew.

“Why?” Dean glares at me, as if the answer to my question should be obvious. “You can’t help.” Fuck, at most he’d just have me committed and after all the shit we’ve seen that’s the last thing I need. “You got a lot of pretty severe crap swinging your way lately, and—and I thought—what? I thought why burst the one good bubble you had left? It’s under control.” For the most part it is. Hell, I’m getting great at dealing with the Lucifer thing, it’s those moments of the cage slipping through that’s really fucking with me. But he’d never be able to understand that. He never had to be there and I’m thankful for that. I am. I’m just a bit bitter about the whole thing, too, I suppose.

“What exactly is under control?” asks Dean, his eyes beseeching me to tell him. He wouldn’t like it if he knew, but, of course, he hates the fact that I’ve been lying to him.

“Dean, look, we can debate this once we deal with Cas.” Very subtle change of topic.

“Yeah, you know how I’m gonna deal? I’m gonna stuff my piehole, I’m gonna drink, and I’m gonna watch some Asain cartoon porn and act like the world’s about to explode because it is.” Dean’s saying all of this with a false smile on his face. He’s already given up and we haven’t even tried. I don’t get it. How, after everything, after we averted the fucking apocalypse, he wants to just call it quits. And why? Because we have a small window of opportunity? Because it’s Cas? I can’t believe that I’m about to do this, but I’ve got to get away from Dean before I start. So I walk outside, where I’m left with just me and the scraps of metal that used to serve as transportation.

“Hey, Castiel. Uhm…. Maybe this is pointless. Look, I don’t know if any part of you even cares, but, I still think you’re one of us, deep down. I mean way, way, way off the reservation, but… Look, we still have ‘til dawn to stop this. Let us help. Please.” I sort of surprised Luci isn’t here, rubbing the oncoming end of the world in my face. I don’t even know what the devil in my head is planning on doing at the end of the world. Either way, Cas hasn’t given me any sort of sign so I may as well go back in with my brother and while away the time until the world explodes. My brother, who, based off the squeaky moan-y noises his computer is making, really is watching cartoon porn. My brother, who is watching cartoon porn and offering me a drink.

“Only if you turn that off.” Because really. We may be close but there is no way in hell that I’m going to sit here with my brother drinking while he watches porn and the world goes to shit. I take the glass he offers and sit down with him at the desk slash table in the kitchen. So this is how it all goes down, huh? Drinking in solidarity with my brother while we wait for the world to explode around us.

“Sam?” asks Cas, though it comes out as more of a breathy groan. Holy shit. Seriously people need to quit with the whole magically appearing thing. It’s freaky. And Cas has definitely seen better days. Way, way, way better days. Now he most certainly does look like he headline in a campaign for Balthory cosmetics, he’s got blood splashed all over him.

“Cas.”

“I heard you call. I need help.” They say that’s the first step to recovery, admitting you’ve got a problem. I just hope Cas isn’t beyond helping. And with that we’re all—Dean, Bobby, Cas, and I—off to an old hide out of Crowley’s. An old creepy ass hide out. And guess what my job is when we get there? Fetch the blood from the supply closet. But that’s probably just as well, I’m sure Cas and Dean are bound to be having quite the conversation in my absence.

“Hi, Sam. Long time, no spooning,” says Lucifer as I come face to face with bright blue eyes. Yes, a few hours now equate to a long time of not seeing my bizarre hallucinations. 

“You’re not really here.” Because he isn’t, none of this is real.

“Well, you’re mostly right at least.”

“Meat hooks…chains…you… It’s not real. It’s just my brain leaking memories from the cage ‘cause of the wall breaking down. That’s all.” Look at me trying to rationalize with myself. As if that isn’t a sure sign that my head’s a mess.

“Hmm… That’s very good, your little theory.” I’m trying to get out of the supply room and get my ass back to the others, but Lucifer walks in front of me, blocking any chance of leaving. “But it’s wrong and you know that. Sammy, this isn’t you going guano.”

“What is this then?” Because if I’m not bat shit insane and seeing things then what the hell am I seeing?

“From the second you sprung out of that lock box…Well, let’s just say we share a rather intimate bonding, of the mental variety,” Lucifer says this while motioning back and forth between the two of us with a twirl of his finger.

“That’s impossible.” I can’t be sharing my mind with him. He can’t be anything besides another delusion of my making. That’s all there is to it. He’s just messing with me. I can’t help but shake my head, as if that’ll help clear it or make this vision of Lucifer go away.

“No. I’m not ‘messing with you’ either. Did anyone ever tell you what consenting to being my vessel really meant? It means more than just housing me in your body. It goes so far beyond that, Sam. The meat hooks and chains, those are parts of the crumbling infrastructure of your mind—which, if you let me, I could probably help you with—but me? I’m a part of you.” Lucifer pokes me in the chest, a tap against my heart to emphasize his point. “A part of my grace lives in you. So while my ‘physical’ presence may still be trapped in the cage, a portion of me escaped with you. Let’s just say when you accepted that last part of yourself, the tortured bit, you were accepting more than yourself. In that moment you accepted a bit of me.” Shit. Fuck. Damn. No. This just wasn’t possible at all. 

“Then why can’t anyone else see you?” I ask him. Ha! So there. Proof that he was all in my head, I really shouldn’t be as enthusiastic about that as I am. 

“Because, as you so eloquently put it, I’m all in your head.” He makes a quick gesture to me head and then he’s off again gesticulating and waving his hands around as he goes. “It’s only a small sliver of me that’s with you, but it’s the part of me that’s aware, that’s sentient, if you will. I’m weak. Most of me, my power, my grace, is still locked away in the cage with Michael—that bit’s little more than a rag doll for him to prey upon, though. I digress. The point is you are the only one who can see me, well that’s not entirely true, either, is it?” I think back to Crowley and all his pointed looks. Hell, even Death seemed a little off, and now what he’s saying has at least a small ring of truth to it. Doesn’t make it any easier to believe. “You are practically the only one who can see me because I am bound to you and far too weak to manifest myself before anyone else.” Shit. Fuck. Damn. You know what the worst part is? That I know he’s right. It’s not all delusions and false shadows in my head, he’s real. So where do we go from here? What’s next?


	6. It's the Little Things that Slip Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So chapter five is now all edited up, and here is chapter six (sorry it's a little on the late side). I'm now fresh out of pre-written chapters so where the story will go from here is anybody's guess. The chapter title is from the song How Long from How to Destroy Angels. Let me know what ya think!

“You’re not real.” This is one of those situations where if I refuse to acknowledge it, if I refuse to say the words out loud, then it really isn’t real. I can’t admit it out loud. Even if I know that Lucifer isn’t lying to me, that he and I are now all kinds of wickedly combined, I can’t say it. But I’m trapped now, and we both know it. My back is literally against a wall, a rather cold one, which is in a serious need of some spring cleaning.

“Right. You come back, I’m sorry, with no soul like some peppy American Psycho, till Saint Dean glues you back together again by buying you some magic amnesia.” With every word Lucifer is breaching further and further into any sort of personal bubble I may claim to have. Though, I suppose when one’s sharing their body as a place of residence there is no sense of propriety. “You’re real,” says Lucifer as he pokes me in the chest. “I’m very real. So let’s move the conversation forward already, shall we?”

“No.” I can barely even manage to choke the word out. Because here I am, trapped in a storage room while god only knows what is going on with Cas, and I’m acting like a petulant child who won’t share his candy. Perhaps that wasn’t the best analogy ever, but still. 

“You’re my bunkmate, buddy,” proclaims Lucifer, as if we were having a fucking slumber party in my head. Pillow fights anyone? “You’re stuck with me for life.” He says it just like that. He isn’t even really taunting me with it, it just is what it is—and that’s almost worse. I mean maybe we bonded a little over having the shit beat up out of us in the cage, but I just don’t get it. “Sam. Sam.”

“Sam!” Shouts Dean, as he and Bobby rush on into the storage room. And holy shit, instead of the devil having me pressed up against the wall, it’s my brother. Lucifer is just gone. Again. Seriously, if his main place of residence is my head then where the fuck does he go? Back to the cage? “You hearing me?” No Dean. I’m now deaf as well as suffering from a rather extreme case of dissociative identity disorder. “Whoa,” says Dean as he places a hand on my chest to try and steady me. “Look at me.” So I do what he says, I look at him and even if he doesn’t know the full extent of what my mental issues are, he sure as hell knows I’ve got them. I’m still freaking out. “All right, we got to button this up. Come on, let’s get out of here.” My brother’s backing away from me like I’m a feral animal. He’s right though. We’ve got the whole evil Leviathan inside of Cas problem to take care of before we can deal with me and my shit. “Come on.” As we leave the storage room, I can’t help but look back. There’s nothing there, but I can almost hear the whisper of chains and Michael’s laughter lingering in the air.

\---

Apparently Cas is gone and possessed by the Leviathan to top it off. Bobby and Dean found me having my lovely little mental revelation while they were trying to search for him. Guess Death’s brilliant plan didn’t work out so well. Cas isn’t anywhere inside of Crowley’s hideout, so away searching the ground we go. Until we find him, or them in him. He looks like shit. I mean even worse than before when his vessel was about to explode. Now he’s decked out in blood and oozing black goo, a side effect of housing leviathan maybe? Oh great. Looks like he’s going for some sort of baptism in the municipal water supply. Soon as the water envelopes him, a black whirlpool springs up, and that is sure as shit not a naturally occurring phenomenon. With a splash, the water becomes consumed by black, flowing out like spreading ink with the epicenter around where Cas went under. And then it’s all gone. Vanished. Not a damn thing left. 

“Aw, hell,” groans Bobby. I couldn’t agree more. What are we supposed to do now? And what the hell has happened to Cas?

“Damn it.” Dean says as well all just stand there stupefied and staring at the municipal water supply.

“You said it. Those… whatever you call ‘ems…” starts Bobby, turning and talking somewhere into the space between Dean and the reservoir.

“Leviathan.” I put in, ever so helpfully. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything by the looks I get from Bobby and Dean in return. I’m just a walking reminder of yet another of our problems. For the moment, I’m better off not saying anything.

“Right. If they’re in the pipes, they got themselves a highway to anywhere,” says Bobby with a shake of his head. Apparently this is one of those scenarios where everything that can go wrong, will. I’m almost regretting not going with the giant microwave idea now. Sure, it’d be tragic, cause who the hell knows what that would’ve done to Cas, but it’s not like we’ve got any idea were he is now.

“Awesome.” Dean mutters as he looks back out at the water as if it still holds all the answers or something. And maybe it does because that’s Cas’s trench coat that has washed up to the bank of the reservoir. Dean fishes it out and it drips down onto the ground a mixture of water and blood stains. “Okay.” My brother looks broken, even more than he did when our plan was to just sit around and do nothing. “So he’s gone.” He looks on the verge of tears. 

“Yeah. Rest in peace. If that’s in the cards,” says Bobby. And I’m just at a loss. I don’t know what to do. Hell, we don’t even know that he’s gone for sure. He can’t be gone. Where were the wings?

“Dumb son of a bitch.” Dean’s winding the jacket around his arm, folding it, and smiling sadly as he says it. Fuck. I wouldn’t be surprised if he does start crying. This is one punch to the gut that isn’t going to go away anytime soon. Still, I refuse to believe that that’s it. Where’s Lucifer when you need him? Right now I could go for a fucked up distraction from the rest of the world and a lesson in angel deaths. There were no wings. But I’ll stay quiet. There’s no point in spewing forth theories, for all I know, Castiel’s wings are etched out on the bottom of the municipal water supply. I can’t give Dean even the shadow of hope in case it turns out to be false. I’ve already done enough. We’ve already got enough shit to deal with on our plate. 

“Well, he was friends with us, wasn’t he?” Bobby glances over to Dean as he asks. “Can’t get much dumber than that.” No I suppose you really can’t. “Come on, those things will be coming up for air soon,” says Bobby as he heads away from the lake, back to the car I assume. He’s right we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Dean follows Bobby with Cas’s coat clutched firmly in his hand and leaving a trail of drips for me to follow. With a final glance back, no sign of Cas or any outline of wings, I follow them back to the car. The ride back to Bobby’s is filled with solemn silence, for the possible death of Cas, for the older than anything creatures we’ve got to exterminate, and for the all the other shit we’re bound to encounter. Back to business as usual then.

\---

“Hey. Wake up, sunshine.” I’m back at Bobby’s and Lucifer is murmuring in my ear. Seriously? What the fuck? Has the devil now become my alarm clock? “Rise and shine little Susie,” he whispers. It’s strange. All levels of strange. I mean he’s like quietly rousing me from sleep; I would’ve at least expected pots and pans. “Up and at ‘em, atom man.” Lucifer pokes me in the forehead and then goes away. Or at least leaves my immediate vicinity.

“Sammy,” Says Dean with a touch to my chest. Oh shit, my brother. I’m scrambling from sleep and trying to sit up right on the couch. “Sammy, hey-” I jump. I can’t help it. This isn’t going to be good. I really don’t want to be having this discussion right now. We’ve got other problems to focus on besides my new mental roommate. Like Leviathans. C’mon Dean, you know you’d rather talk about the old evil creatures from purgatory and how we get rid of them. “Whoa.” Like that’s supposed to calm me down. “That’s twelve hours straight, I’m calling that rested. Here,” Dean says as he hands me a bottle of water. Water is good. And now he’s handing me some kind of power bar; this is practically star treatment from Dean. That doesn’t bode well. “Hydrate, and uh, protein-ate.” Great. Now he’s dragging over a chair and plopping down in front of me.

“Your brother really needs to work on his vocabulary. In what world is protein-ate a word, huh Sammy?” asks Lucifer, mockery more than abundant in his tone. Well, he hasn’t wandered off far this time; nope he’s just leaning against the door frame happy as can be.

“Breakfast in bed.” So the new plan is ignore the other person in my head whenever there are people around who aren’t able to see him.

“Don’t get used to it. Let me see that hand,” says Dean. I had kind of forgotten about it, how I had gotten it injured before, in that whole show down thing with Cas. 

“Oh, he wants to hold your widdle hand. How sweet.” Its funny, Lucifer almost sounds jealous as he says that. He’s moved from the door frame to a chair across the room. I wonder if he can feel any sense of comfort. Do fallen archangels now trapped inside of human heads feel things? Dean pulls the gauze off of my head and I can’t help but make a face. The cut isn’t exactly pretty to look at.

“Eh, you’ll live,” states Dean. Why thank you, is that your professional opinion doctor? “Here,” he says, as he pours whisky over it as a disinfectant. And that stings. 

“All right, take it easy,” says Dean. Because having whisky poured over wounds is always such a fun filled time. Bobby comes into the room, to join in on the impending Spanish Inquisition or to make sure no one’s dead yet. Right, moving on.

“So, ooze invasion. Any leads?” I’m hoping that this’ll serve as a good enough distraction as I say it. Dean moves from the chair to sitting on the edge of the couch I’m on, making room for Bobby to sit on the chair. Looks like he’s here to join in on the interrogation, then.

“I got all my feelers out. Whatever they’re up to, it ain’t—ain’t about going Mothra down Main Street,” Bobby says while pulling out a small roll of gauze to re-wrap my hand with. “They’ll turn up. You seem pretty eager to stretch your legs, you know.”

“Now, onto our other big problem,” starts Dean. Yep. Here it comes. “How’re you doin’? And do not say okay.”

“I’m not okay.” That much I feel free to own up to, at this point I don’t have much of a choice. Between how fucked up everyone else has already said I am and my behavior, I don’t have a foot left to stand on in the okay department.

“You think?” asks Dean. It’s a bit harsh, and more than a tad bitter, but not unexpected.

“Hey. Go a little easy,” soothes Bobby as he looks at Dean. I appreciate it, Bobby trying to look out for me, even now. It’s a bit like an unintentional good cop/bad cop bit; Dean angry and going in full force with guns blazing and Bobby there as a cool and calm back up.

“There’s nothing easy about it, Bobby, okay,” fires back Dean, eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed. “We acted like he had everything under control.” A pointed look at Bobby.

“I get it,” I interrupt. I’m the one who’s causing the problem or is the problem here, I don’t need them fighting each other over my fuck-ups. “I’m sorry. Look, I didn’t exactly want to crack up, you know.”

“But here we are, with you having a basket full of egg shells, Sam-I-Am,” intones Lucifer. That’s just what’s needed right now, more of Luci’s commentary. How about a little solidarity with the dude whose head you happen to be housed in, huh?

“What the hell happened back there?” Dean asks me, keeping his voice level. I’m not even sure where to start or what to say.

“Well, it’s not just flashbacks anymore.” Seems like a good a place as any to start.

“Then what?” questions Dean. His eyes are searching me, trying to find the answers, trying to understand something he’ll never be able to get—something that I never want him to be able to get.

“It’s more like… I’m seeing through the cracks.” Cracks in ceilings. Cracks in my mental state. Cracks in my own reasoning. It’s a good diplomatic answer.

“What does that mean?” He looks confused as all hell as he asks it. 

“It means I’m having a difficult time figuring out what’s real.” There. That’s it. More or less. Perhaps a little less on the more.

“Hallucinations,” Dean states with a raise of his eyebrows. This is already starting to go downhill; there is no winning this one.

“For starters.”

“Well, for starters, if you’re tripping Hell’s Bells, why would you hide that?” Oh, and anger is making a reappearance as Dean asks that. I really don’t know what to say. He isn’t going to take the answer well. He’ll start to blame himself, as if he should’ve been able to see it all along or something. This one’s all on me, but how do I tell him that? It’s not like he’s just going to lie down and accept that I was doing it because that’s what he and Bobby needed from me, that I was being okay because they—hell we all—needed me to be.

“I wasn’t hiding it, Dean, I was just not talking about it.” Just like leaving out certain facts doesn’t mean I’m full blown lying. “I mean, it seemed like you two had enough going on as it was. Look, I just figured, try to hold onto the safety bar and ride it out, you know?” Dean and Bobby share quite the loaded look at that. 

“I am one wild ride.” Lucifer deadpans. And I can’t help it. I look over at him and snort. Shit. 

“What the hell, Sam?” Dean asks and it’s pretty obvious I’m off in delusion land. Well, sort of delusion land. “You know it’s not real. Right?” I can’t even say anything back to that. At all. I refuse to lie, but I can’t say that ‘oh hey, Lucifer and I are kind soul bound now. So, I’m probably stuck with the bastard until god only knows when—but at least that god isn’t Cas anymore.’ Right. I doubt that’d go well. So silence it is.

“Except for the part where you know I am,” says Lucifer with a wave of his hand. In my total lack of saying anything Bobby and Dean walk out of the room and I’m left alone with Lucifer. Something tells me this is going to become a frequent part of my life and isn’t that just peachy.


	7. Your Broken Ribs are Cracking Me Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God. I am so incredibly sorry for taking so damn long to get this chapter written and posted. Life has just been crazy, between school, an internship I just recently got, and my newly developed tumblr addiction I just was rather lacking in the writing department. Huge thanks to all of you who read this fic, it seriously means the world to me! Just know that this fic is my baby and I will stick it out till the end. I can't promise not to miss posting (at the very least I promise to update once a month, though I will always aim for weekly updates) but I do promise never to abandon this fic or you wonderful people who are actually reading it. Anyway, apologies with pizza men, anchovies, and unicorns on top! Here is the latest chapter. The title is from the song "Skeleton" by Ghost Town. Please let me know what you think!
> 
> P.S. The golf terms are really all legitimate terms used in golf.

Dean’s gone. Off following a potential Leviathan lead and leaving me with Bobby and my new best friend. My new self proclaimed best friend who is incapable of shutting the hell up. Ever. Even when I’m rather inconveniently on the phone with my brother. My brother, who is saying that the swim team lead is a positive, and that two of them are missing. Wonderful, more evil purgatory kids on the loose.

“You know, I really think Prince William has found the right girl. What do you think?” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Lucifer making small talk about the political gossip of other countries as read from a newspaper. When did this become my life?

“So you think these, um, these Leviathan things just jump into people? Like Eve did?” I ask Dean. I’m trying to keep my cool, he doesn’t need to know that the little devil on my shoulder is more present than ever, that the cracks in my mental state are really fault lines that are apparently filled by some freakish angel bond thing with dear ole Luci. No. He doesn’t need to know any of that, so we just focus on the hunt.

“I don’t know, it makes sense, right?” Dean says. And yes, strange body hoping creatures from purgatory make as much sense as anything else right now. “Anyway, state trooper’s got surveillance cam on the kids, about six hours old, of them gassing up just south of the Dakota line, so I’m headed back your way. We’ll just track them from Bobby’s.” I can hear the dull roar of the Impala’s engine confirming the impending return of my brother. I love my brother. I do. But I can’t help but dread his return. I mean seeing the looks Bobby throws my way are bad enough, but seeing them on Dean? He thinks I can’t see the fear in his eyes. He thinks I don’t know he feels like he can’t trust me. Turning on the GPS on someone’s phone isn’t exactly a promising sign of trust. He thinks I don’t know about that either. But that’s just as well. Honestly, I’m surprised I’m not more broken than I already am.

“Aww… Sammy, aren’t you excited for your second baby sitter to come home? Careful though, I don’t think he child-proofed the house before he left,” taunts Lucifer. He puts down the newspaper and picks up a knife, filing away at his nails. Only the devil would use a knife as a nail file. I wonder if they make muzzles for angel’s that are freakily soul-bonded to you but that have no corporal presence to the vast majority of the population. Shit. Dean. Phone. Conversation. Right. I should get back to that.

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“Sure Sam, it sounds about as great as 1984. Because being surveyed by Big Brother is always a good time. Do try to contain your enthusiasm.” Lucifer is back to babbling along in my ear. We’re really making progress the two of us. At least there’s less meat hooks and chains; now it’s all psychobabble wrapped up in a neat little bow of pop culture and vague references.

“Hey! How are you doing?” Asks Dean, and damn it I knew I took too long responding. My brother may have issues with shit like toasting toast but he isn’t stupid, especially not when it comes to me. And I love him; I really do, but damn it if I don’t wish he could learn to gracefully drop shit or ignorantly ignore shit. 

“You know, uh… Okay.” I say. I’m as okay as I ever get. We’re hunters. Are we ever really okay? I mean by definition our lives are a cacophonous mess of dealing with strange shit, surviving, stopping the latest apocalypse—Buffy much?—and pretending that we are just fine and dandy. At least I’ve still got a soul; that’s always a definite positive, right?

“Yes. At least you have a soul, because people with souls never do bad things. C’mon Sammy, you know better than that. Hell, some might argue you were a better hunter without it,” says Lucifer, and I can’t tell if he is just playing up the role of devil’s advocate or trying to be helpful in some twisted way. The worst part is he has point, about the whole people who have souls doing bad things, not about whatever my success rate as a soulless asshole of a hunter was. Great. I’m more or less agreeing with the devil. Our relationship has reached all new levels of bizarre.

“Okay. Well hang in there, all right?” responds Dean. With a click he’s off the line and I’m stuck looking at Lucifer as he continues to pick at the dirt beneath his nails with the edge of the knife.

“Just okay? Man, I’m having a great day.” Lucifer says with a smug twinkle in his eye, emphasizing just how great his day is by stabbing the knife into the kitchen table. Yes. Having him around as my new not-so-imaginary-but-may-as-fucking-well-be friend is going to be disastrous for the furniture and so much fun. Almost as fun as a hundred days at the mystery sport was. Maybe it’s just an angel thing. Hard to believe that I was the one who so naively used to believe in the goodness of angels. Weren’t those the days? And oh dear god, Lucifer is swinging around a damn fire poker as if the thing were a golf club. He has the attention span of a dog on speed.

“FOUR!” Lucifer shouts out as he continues to swing the stupid thing every which way. It’s a wonder he hasn’t poked out his own eye already.

“BIRDIE!” Oh, and the golf terminology continues. Just what I always wanted a lesson in golfing from Lucifer. 

“BOGEY!” Tiger Woods career suddenly makes a lot more sense.

“BULGE AND ROLL!” There is no way that’s a golf term.

“BUMP AND RUN!!” Are you fucking kidding me?

“CHICKEN WING!” Just stop. And shut up already.

“HEEL-SHAFTED!” STOP.

“UPRIGHT LIE!”

“Shut up. Just shut the fuck up already!” I can’t help but scream at him. I guess I cracked; time to get the mud and a sander. So much for the parenting technique of not paying attention to the bad behavior to make it stop. Of, course this would be when Bobby decides to walk into the room.

“Hey, Sam. You, uh, having a little bag lady moment?” Bobby asks gruffly.

“Sorry,” I say while Bobby reaches into the fridge and pulls out a couple of beers, then proceeds to hand one of them to me. “Thanks.” The right side of his mouth is quirking up in sort of smile, and just that little smile makes me feel a little bit better about this whole ordeal, about everything, about the shit storm that is now my life. “You know, after….everything. All these years, all that we’ve been through…” I trail off. 

“You beat the Devil before, kid,” says Bobby. It’s just so matter of fact, the way he says that. He makes me want to believe him. Too bad I can’t. Too bad it isn’t that simple anymore. I mean how can you beat the devil when he’s a part of you? A part of you that’s soul bound or bonded or whatever the hell you want to call it.

“It’s kinda different.” I respond with a shake of my head. Kind of really different, as in my mind wasn’t melted away and merged with Lucifer. Shit. Lucifer is the Mal in my inceptionified head. Wonderful.

“Not really. You’ll get a handle on this too. You will.” Bobby says this like it’s the unequivocal truth. I wish it was. Great. As if to prove my point, Lucifer has now decided to stand right behind Bobby, still waving around the fire poker like a crazy person. Oh wait; I’m the crazy person in this equation. I swear to god if I could shoot Lucifer right now, I would. He’s just standing there, making stupid as shit faces behind Bobby’s back while muttering faux encouraging words.

“You’re not in hell anymore. You’re here, with us,” says Bobby. My eyes snap back to him from glaring behind him at the damn devil. He knows. Bobby, I mean. He knows that I’m seeing shit right here and now but he still thinks that we can get through this like all the other shit we’ve struggled our lucked our way through. Too bad this time it really is different.

“Yeah, Sammy. It may be different now, but just think you’re here now with all of us,” mocks Lucifer. I can’t help thinking this is its own form of hell. It may not be as bad as the cage, or, well, it’s different from the type of hell that the cage is, but this isn’t exactly happy-happy fun time with rainbows and unicorns and smatterings of glitter.

“You hear me, Sam?” asks Bobby, once again stealing my attention away from Lucifer as I trail my eyes back over to him.

“Yeah, I hear you, Bobby.” I say with a nod. There’s a second where we just stand there staring at each other, neither of us really sure where to go from there or what words to say. It’s not exactly like Bobby’s the type for small talk or drawn out conversations. It’s not exactly like this is the sort of thing I like to dwell on. I tend to like keeping just how totally fucked I am to myself, thank you. Breaking us away from our staring contest, Bobby’s phone begins to ring. Well, thank god for small miracles, right? Of course, his phone ringing isn’t usually a sign of good things, but it could be a break on the Leviathans or something.

“Oh, that’s my local.” Bobby says, wandering over to the table to pick up his phone. “Hello?”

“Come again?” asks Bobby. He’s got this confused look on his face, like he doesn’t quite get what the other person is saying. Don’t you just love listening to one sided phone conversations? For all I know the person could be calling about an outbreak of Oompa Loompas.

“Really Sam, that’s the first place your mind goes? Oompa Loompas? And this, ladies and gentlemen, is my one true vessel,” proclaims Lucifer. And he’s slow clapping, the bastard.

“Who is this?” asks Bobby, still looking a tad on the confused side, but a bit more of a serious confusion rather than a ridiculous sort of confusion.

“Jody?” Yeah, definitely a serious looking face now. I guess it’s not just the Oompa Loompas this time with a tanning crisis. So something big and nasty then? Isn’t that just what the doctor ordered. Not like this patient will be allowed to go anywhere anytime soon. Right. Dean has seriously got to stop watching that Doctor Sexy shit. It’s getting to me. 

“Gotcha,” says Bobby nodding his head. He looks again at me, eyes wider than normal. Definitely not a sign of anything good. Hanging up the phone, he sets it back down on the table then turns to talk to me.

“Well,” he starts looking rather perturbed, “either Sheriff Mills is having an ObamaCare-insured opium dream, or something’s eating folks down at Souix Falls General Hospital.” Typical Bobby, coving the serious with a cynical joke. Then again I suppose we all do that. Must be an unwritten rule in the hunter hand-book: thou shall make macabre, skeptical, dark, and otherwise cynical and generally inappropriate jokes while on and off—okay while on the job. Because let’s face it, no matter how much I wish it were otherwise, there is no way out of the job. Not permanently. Bobby goes back over to the table and grabs his jacket, then looks at me and starts talking.

“Look, I don’t want to bruise your ego or anything, but…” But it’s not safe to bring the crazy person to the potentially cannibal fueled hospital. I get it. 

“No, no, no, it’s okay. Go, go, go. I’ll watch the phones.” I quickly respond. 

“Like to say things in threes then?” Asks Lucifer. And really can’t the dude ever shut up? Either way, I sort of follow slash push Bobby out of the house and send him on his way to go track down the whatever it is at Sioux Falls Hospital. 

“So just you and me huh?” Yes, Lucifer, it’s just you and me now, and doesn’t that just scream party time?


End file.
